Posted 4/11/2025
When she was 24 years old, Pauline accepted a job for around $2 per hour. For three months she cried and cried, both at home and at work. Her mother asked, “Are you sure this work is for you?” She told her mother she knew people with disabilities but had never seen people who needed her help and needed to be empowered like the people with whom she was working. It was 1977, and she was responsible for babies in incubators, school age children and young adults—all of whom had severe physical disabilities in addition to IDD. Today, 47 years later, she still serves many, many of those people.
Senior Regional Executive Director Paula L. Nerone recently spoke with Pauline about her tenure at Merakey:
“Although I’ve known her for nearly 35 years, Ms. Pauline Seibert revealed so much more when she was interviewed about her work as a DSP. It’s easy to understand why she has been recognized as a devoted DSP, a steadfast employee, and an awe-inspiring person, who we at Merakey Allegheny Valley School (and anyone) are lucky and honored to know."
Pauline rises at 4:00 am every day. She is required to be at work at 7:00 am but she takes three Philadelphia SEPTA buses to get there, and she hates to be late. She generally arrives at about 6:15 am, which she prefers should a problem present itself. In her 47 years of employment, Pauline has never called out sick. She added humbly that her only son, although now an adult, never missed a day from grades K-12.
A slight, 5-foot-tall individual, Pauline will participate in and complete a minimum of 32 lifts and transfers per day for dressing, changing and positioning, and feed at least eight folks on highly specialized diets who cannot feed themselves.
Pauline has learned to recognize how her day is going by sound. Because nearly all the people she supports are nonverbal, she has come to recognize how they feel by sight and sound. Pauline reports that she really likes to begin and work through the day with a happy attitude. She loves interacting with her nonverbal folks and deciphering and interpreting the things that are important to them. Pauline provides both a sense of security and a sense of joy to the people in her care, and for this and so much more, she is a shining example of someone who puts her heart and soul into exceptional care.”